Six good men who listened

2.     On a grassy hill, stars and moon, our asses gone wet with night dew. Removed from the noise and other people, the bright windows of the house down below us. We hadn't wanted to talk to anyone but each other, and snuck out the back door with a bottle of red wine. We didn't touch but I could feel the heat surrounding his body, could hear his breath. His throat, as he tipped the bottle, became the most important thing to watch.

3.     There was no danger but he walked me to my car. Stood leaning against my door, smiling, wanting me to keep talking, maybe wanting me to stop. This was the first time I'd been attracted to a man with a beard. He scratched it, making scritchy sounds, looking over my shoulder, trying to remember something. I should have kissed him, of course.

4.     The folding chairs in his kitchen must have been awful to sit on, but we stayed at the table for hours. I wanted to tell him all my stories, every crazy thing that ever happened to me and some that didn't. I knew I was winning him with my vocabulary; I saw his face changing when I used scientific words. I scraped up what I could of high school biology, frantic to think of analogies that wouldn't seem forced.

5.     At four in the morning we went for pie. I drove. Out of the city, far enough to see the sky again. The truck stop was too full of canned light and frozen air. I'd warned him to bring a jacket but he didn't believe me. We sat on one side of the booth, trying to share my jacket and mostly failing. He tried to get me to drink coffee and I tried to get him to stop being afraid of truckers.

6.     We both made excuses to go to the kitchen, then stayed there. The others were far enough away not to matter. He was worried and wanted to ask me some things. I was young; I realized I liked feeling chosen. His pants had about a billion pockets and he always, always had a pen.